John Humphrys sweats the small stuff

John Humphrys may be smiling but he's not happy. What, out of the world's problems, is winding him up? It's the use and abuse of the English language, by kids, teachers, the BBC, and above all, politicians.

The Today presenter is turning into the Robert Kilroy-Silk of grammar, tickling the outrage of the bookish, whipping pedants into a frenzy.

Language, he insists, should be unambiguous. Particularly when politicians use it. Though even his colleagues are, he admits, "occasionally guilty of some pretty appalling ambiguities." Here's a funny from BBC Radio 4 news: "For the second time in six months, a prisoner has died after hanging himself in Durham jail."

And he does a rather good story about - and impression of - Tony Blair at a Radio 4 urinal; but unfortunately, he's soon off like an unappealing Lynne Truss, railing against apocryphal 60s educationalists who, he says, decided grammar didn't allow people to "express their inner souls." These days, blimey, it's all "Oxbridge graduates" at the BBC who "cannot string a simple sentence together"…"my four-year-old could read the news"… "what on earth is going on"… "incredibly sad" … "deeply depressing" …zzzzz.

Members of the audience chip in with other pressing concerns: the plural of stadium; academic language; the BBC. One worrying 11-year-old cancelled his subscription to Match because there were more than 30 exclamation marks on the cover.

"One rule I never break, one thing I never do," chuckles Humphrys, "is split infinitives." Does he not listen to the news bulletins that punctuate the Today programme, to keep a sense of perspective? How long would his sweeping statements and factoids stand up under the kind of scrutiny to which BBC interviewers subject their guests?